Little Fish with Big Impact In Trouble on U.S. West Coast
Scientists are concerned that officials waited too long to order a ban on U.S. Pacific sardine fishing that goes into effect July 1. The dire state of the sardine population is a cautionary tale about overharvesting these and other forage fish that are a critical part of the marine food web.
One of the most spectacular fisheries collapses in U.S. history occurred off the West Coast in the 1950s, when hundreds of boats severely overfished a Pacific sardine population already in decline from a natural down-cycle. The resulting crash decimated the largest fishery in the Western Hemisphere, closed down Monterey, California’s famed Cannery Row, and so depressed sardine populations that they did not recover for nearly 40 years.
Given that record, it’s easy to understand the recent dismay of many fisheries scientists, who have watched U.S. Pacific sardine numbers plummet as fishing has continued amid another natural downturn. In April, after documenting an estimated 90 percent decline in the stock — from an estimated 1.4 million tons in 2007 to roughly 100,000 tons today — the Pacific Fishery Management Council decided to close the sardine fishery. That moratorium takes effect July 1.
The impacts are huge for the West Coast fishermen and seafood processors who have once again come to depend on sardines. In 2012, when nearly 100,000 tons of sardines were caught off the U.S. coast, this fishery was worth more than $21 million. But scientists are particularly concerned about what this means for the marine food web. Many fisheries experts, including some scientists working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), think the fishery closure has come too late.
‘We’ve failed to respond quickly and that’s pushed these fish to lower levels,’ says one scientist.
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